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How Failed Peace Talks in Syria Help Al Qaeda

It didn’t take long for the breakdown in cease-fire talks between the United States and Russia to affect the situation on the ground in Syria. Early Friday, Damascus heavily bombarded rebel-held neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo in a bid to retake the divided city.

But the West’s failure to silence the guns of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could also have a more insidious effect over time: the merger of mainstream rebel groups in Aleppo with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), an al Qaeda-affiliated group formerly known as the Nusra Front.